There are friends whom you keep in touch with regardless of time or distance and this post is dedicated to such friends, item, jmyo, smyo, RS and AC, all of them are R's friends from his carefree undergrad days in India. It has been 10 long years and there are moments when R suddenly reminisces about those days in Madras, the all-night cards session with item and the myos, the messed up mess food including the day's specials, glue pongal, dosai from the leather department, rock hard stone iddlis and the rubber chapatis, the Monday night outing tradition to Woodlands for good food..... those were good old days

Item:

Today he is a successful software engineer, ten years back he was the sportive guy who bore the brunt of all our stupid leg-pulling. R first met him at the crazy Prof S's Physics class where Item was made the class representative. Crazy Prof S is known to fire a volley of questions at the start of each class and R and item found out the best way to escape the firing squad and formed a friendship to last forever.

btw if you are curious, like me, Item and R realized that they can escape Prof S's questions by sitting in the front row of benches right in the middle making them practically invisible to Prof S's eyes. (well do you think these guys were ever invisible? 6 footer R invisible? well I bet the guy right behind R and that would be jmyo was invisible!!)

Jmyo:

Yes he is the invisible guy from Prof S's class and another software guy in our group. Ahh! those days spent enjoying khatta-meeta chaat Ramakrishna Sweets and Savories and the disappointment when it closed!! Well the adventurous duo (R and Jmyo) suddenly get spiritual and embark on a pilgrimage during the college annual fest. Their trip included, reaching Chidambaram at 2am, sleeping in the railway station benches, to be questioned by the cops, boating along the mangroves in the backwaters of Pichavaram along with an overly cautious father of a naughty 2 year old, being the only guests at Hotel Tamilnadu at Kumbakonam and shunting between the old and new bus stand in Thanjavur. Yes their trip also a good dose of prayers and darshan at the Chidambaram Natrajara Temple, Swamimalai and the Thanjavur periya kovil. (incidentally R's favorite temple, a post and photos from the temple are overdue)

Smyo:

Another software engineer (not again!), he is the ultimate leg-puller in our group. Full of fun and pranks nobody escapes his teasing! On an impulse, the gang (R, the myos and AC) decide to head out to cooler pastures of the Kodai hills in the peak summer without reservations. The trip included a sudden and quick halt at R's home in Madurai followed by bribing the entrepreneur sales man to get seats in over-flowing bus to Kodai. Ending up in Kodai they find themselves without a place to hang their hats for the night until they encounter another entrepreneur sales man who rents them out a cottage. Smyo was in full form that trip, teasing AC about his unwillingness to bike all the way to Pillar rocks and R's take it easy attitude on the tandem bicycle with Jmyo (poor Jmyo! R let him sweat it out!). We should do it again guys!

RS:

No points for guessing his profession! another desi software engineer in US. Our first impressions of him reminded us of the Big Bull - Harshad Mehta and that became his nickname. A Michael Jackson fan (atleast in those days)! He is a big-time do-gooder... ready to help out anyone (including ACA who would come knocking doors at the night before the exams)! Today he is the proud father of an awesome two-year old and still the same helpful friend who always around when R needed him!

AC:

Finally somebody who is not a software professional even though he did his graduate studies in Computer Science. He is biggest devotee of Mark Knopfler and music is his soul! The best way to escape the grind of life was to head out to AC's apartment in Tnagar and enjoy his guitaring skills! He was also the gang leader for those of us heading to Max Mueller Bhavan for German classes.

Ofcourse I would love to know more about Veerabadran aka Jojo aka R's antics during his undergrad days! Guys if you knew R during those days do post your memories in the comment box! I would sure like to know more!

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Comments:

smyo
said...

Weren't we a bunch back then ! Lotsa stuff to write about JoJo.

I am surprised Jojo didnt say a word about his non-stop singing with AC's frequent comments of it being completely out of Tone. And you know when cacophonix (aka gardhabdas) the bard goes singin he usually ends up bein tied to a tree

Kodai was a blast with the fog covered pillar rock and biking around the lake. The Kodai trip reminds me of Jojo's early experiments with photography. It was rather shockin to find out that of the 2 reels he took only 10 developed (kinda) !

Ofcourse over the years his photography skills have improved and he doesnt travel without his 15lb camera. The camera actually once saved us ( R, RS and myself ) from being jailed for smugglin pot (aka Marijuana ) in CA.

The Story goes like this - R, RS and myself went on a roadtrip down the northern CA coastline. We started @ fort-brags in Mendocenno went up to Eureka and driving back with Smyo at the wheels ( R didnt have a licence ofcourse for reasons known only to himself ) Driving back down hwy1 through this desolate town at 10pm in a unmarked brand new black rental. Stop at a few stop signs and start accelerating and out of the blue , red&blue lights and sirens. Ok smyo thinks he is done (shoot first ticket) and wonders .. did I jump a stop sign, Cant be speedin was only 2 over the 55 limit.

The mama's come by, the usual formalities drivers license etc. The mama returns after 15 mins, checks R & RS's photo id (wierd). Then enquires if we are smuggling pot ( Wooo where did that come from ) After the denials the Mama ofcourse doesnt belive a bit of what we say. So a squad of sniffer dogs arrive to the scene and are at once all over the car and the trunk. At this point we are certain its jail time baby, hope we get to stay in the same cell ! Finally the mama asks a sensible question - 'what are you doing out here middle of no where at night' and before smyo could open his mouth to say 'we drove to Eureka to drink Coffee' R comes up with a smarter answer 'we were driving down the coast to Eureka taking pictures' and pulls out his bigass 10pound 100mm telephoto lens and his cool-ass SLR camera. The mama buys the story and rest is history and I am here writing this comment and R is out there enjoyin live with V writin this blog !